


somebody's baby is not coming back

by batyatoon



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Epilogue, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Missing Scene, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-19
Updated: 2018-11-19
Packaged: 2019-08-25 18:40:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16666129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/batyatoon/pseuds/batyatoon
Summary: crow on the cradle, the black and the whitesomebody’s baby is born for a fightcrow on the cradle, the white and the blacksomebody’s baby is not coming back- Show of Hands, "Crow on the Cradle"An epilogue of sorts.  Vex understands that there are things that need to be done, even when you don't know how to go forward from here.





	somebody's baby is not coming back

**Author's Note:**

> Contains spoilers through the ending of Critical Role Campaign #1.
> 
> "Crow on the Cradle" is originally by Sidney Carter.

* * *

 

The day after everything ends, Vex has to take Velora home.

Her visit should have stretched from one day into two at least, maybe several, but they’ve found out what’s wrong with Grog -- nothing to do with Vecna at all, thank everything good in the world -- and they don’t have much time to spare before going into Pandemonium after him. Under better circumstances she might ask Cassandra to look after Velora until they get back, but … all things considered, that wouldn’t be fair to either of them.

So she takes one Gatestone and leaves the other with Percy, and asks Keyleth to open a doorway to Syngorn through the Sun Tree, and steps through with her little sister in her arms.  Velora is subdued and silent, in a way that hurts Vex’s heart. She doesn’t know if it’s the belated terror of what happened to her, or some lingering weakness and exhaustion from her injuries, or just the knowledge of --

She catches herself trying to pull away from thinking the words _Vax’s death_.  Again.

Syldor’s home isn’t far from the tree Keyleth chose. She asks Velora if she’d rather walk than be carried; Velora shakes her head silently, and leans against Vex’s shoulder.

It’s Devana who answers the door, her golden hair bundled up in disarray and her eyes deeply shadowed.  She gives a little wordless cry at the sight of them, and reaches out with both hands. Vex shifts the warm weight in her arms, ready to hand Velora over to her mother; she’s caught off guard when instead of taking her, Devana wraps both arms around Vex and Velora together and holds them both tight for a long moment.

“Thank you,” Devana breathes into Vex’s shoulder, sounding choked and more than halfway to tears.  “For saving her. Thank you. Bless you.”

She can’t return the embrace, with both of her arms supporting Velora, and she isn’t at all sure whether she wants to or not.  It’s mercifully brief; Devana does take Velora from her arms as she draws back, and Velora wraps both arms around her mother’s neck and buries her head in her shoulder, starting to sniffle.

“Please, come in,” Devana urges. “I know Syldor wants to see you.”

Vex refrains from pointing out that what Syldor wants isn’t her priority and never has been. She manages a small smile, and follows Devana into the front receiving room to wait for him.  Except he’s there already, waiting for her. He’s smiling in welcome, and his robes and hair are impeccable ... but there are fine lines of tension and worry around his eyes that weren't there a year ago, visible even through his present relief.

She mouths her way through the necessary pleasantries, takes a seat opposite Syldor when invited to, wishes briefly and fervently that she’d brought Trinket with her. Waits to see if Devana will stay or go; she isn’t particularly surprised when Devana murmurs something about seeing that Velora gets some rest, and carries her out, leaving Vex and Syldor alone.

“I suppose,” Syldor begins, and cuts off in surprise when she raises a hand, palm out toward him, in a gesture of interruption.

“Wait,” she says.  “Before you say anything, there’s … there’s something you need to know. Velora already knows, and she shouldn't have to be the one to tell you.” She wraps one cold hand around the other, and draws an awkward painful breath, and sees Syldor’s eyes start to widen in terrible realization in the split second before she says “Vax’ildan is dead.”

His lips part to release a huff of air as though at a blow, and his face goes dead pale, and for a few heartbeats there’s not a single sound in the room.

“How --”  Syldor’s voice fails him on the word, and he starts again. “How did he die?”

“Bravely.” She doesn’t have to think for that answer; it’s pushed out of her by the pressure of built-up pain. “Fighting a god. Saving the fucking world.”

“Skies above,” he breathes, his eyes wide and blank and his brow creasing in a stricken stare.  It’s the most unguarded look she’s ever seen from him in her life.

(It makes him look so much like Vax, and that hurts more than it has any right to.)

Something wrenches in her chest at the sight of that look on Syldor’s face, something dark and twisting in on itself like entangling vines. There’s pity somewhere in that tangle, and some close relative of guilt, and an impulse to offer comfort, and a terrible fury that bares its teeth and snarls to itself _what right does he have to grieve, this is_ **_my_ ** _loss, Vax was_ **_mine_** _, not his,_ **_never_ ** _his, how_ **_dare_ ** _he_.

Distantly, she hears herself thinking: _coming here was a terrible mistake._

_No_ , she corrects herself in the next breath.  Coming here was necessary. _Staying_ here, though, is likely to get very ugly very fast.

Unless she stops it. And she’ll have to do it quickly, because Syldor is already opening his mouth again; it's going to be about his own reaction or some fumbling attempt to ask about hers, and she can't deal with either.

“Please,” she says before he can speak, firmly but as gently as she can, “don’t. Please just don’t. I know you’re going to have a lot of complicated feelings about this, and you’ll need to work through them, but it can _not_ be my job to help you do that. Not now. I promise you, it’ll be terrible for both of us if I try.”

If this had happened two years ago, three years ago … she would have raged at him, flung accusations into his face. Made a poisoned arrow out of all her own bitterness and loneliness and grief, and fired it at his heart.  But she can see the pain already there in his face, and there’s no urge in her to make it any worse.

It’s a strangely empty feeling, the silence in her where that urge used to live.

(That distant part of her mind notices, with a vague detached wonder: she's cut him off twice now in as many minutes, and he isn't getting angry.)

He’s nodding slowly, his face still white to the lips.  “Yes,” he manages to say, his voice thin and a touch hoarse, as though with great effort to make any sound at all.  “Yes, I quite understand. Is there … will there be any … ?”

“No,” she says, when it becomes clear he won’t be finishing the sentence, and even on the single syllable she can her her own voice shake.

“I see.” It’s a whisper.  His hands close on each other in his lap, and he looks away.

Silence stretches for a few breaths.  Vex gathers herself, and rises to her feet.  “I’m afraid I can’t stay.”

“Of course,” Syldor says with automatic courtesy, and rises in turn. “I … thank you for bringing Velora home. And, and for ... bringing me word.”

Vex nods, and swallows past the tightness in her throat, and says “Good day” as clearly as she can manage, and turns to head for the door.

“Vex’ahlia,” he says behind her.

She stops, one hand already reaching for the doorknob, and looks back at him.

Syldor isn’t meeting her eyes; he’s looking down at the few yards of floor between them, as though at some impassable chasm.  “If,” he starts, and for a moment doesn’t seem to know how to go on from there, and starts again. “... if you ever do feel you can bear to speak to me about this. However long it takes. Will you let me know?”

His voice is very low, in a tone she’s never heard from him before. If she had to put a name to that sound, it would be something like _humble_.  Or _beaten_.

“Of course,” she whispers, and turns blindly to fumble with the doorknob and get out of the house before he can see her tears.

 

* * *

 

It will be the better part of a year before she returns -- again, on her own -- to Syngorn. Returns to knock at the familiar door; to give Devana a decorous hug and Velora a tight one; to sit facing her father in the receiving room, with a cup of hot tea held in both hands.

To say quietly, _I think I’m ready for us to talk about it now._


End file.
